


drops of Jupiter in her hair

by jenny_wren



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 21:51:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10976043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_wren/pseuds/jenny_wren
Summary: Ariadne with Arthur and Eames after inception





	1. Chapter 1

Ariadne, following her Arthur-approved get away plan, made directly for the taxi rank. Cobb had been whisked away by his father-in-law and she knew Yusuf was flying on to Mombasa via Frankfurt. Arthur, precise and careful as a pin, told her it was probably better she didn’t know what his plans were. 

Eames had just laughed and said he didn’t believe in plans when she asked him, but Ariadne was starting to pick up that Eames talked himself up as a lot more reckless and contrary than he actually was, and she refused to believe Arthur hadn’t provided him with his own neat dossier of instructions. She also refused to believe Eames would ignore them, the way the character he was playing would, because Arthur trusted him too much for that.

Arthur and Eames, she thought, worked together a lot better than they pretended they did.

Which was why her heart thudded sickly when Arthur neatly slid his luggage trolley just before her at the taxi rank and Eames equally neatly boxed her in from behind.

There was a brief moment when she wondered if her best option was simply to scream her head off, but it wasn’t as if they’d actually done anything and she could easily imagine their faces twisting into bland bemusement and maybe she’d escape the airport but she had no illusions she’d be able to hide from Arthur’s ruthless investigative skills.

Instead she stayed quiet and pleasant as Eames explained to the taxi-diver they’d discovered on the plane that they were all staying at the same hotel and wasn’t it wonderful they could share a cab, while Arthur politely loaded all their bags in the trunk. When they slid into the car, Ariadne was in the middle, Arthur’s arm around her waist but in the same nearly sexless way he’d kissed her in that dream. She stayed quiet as Arthur and Eames debated the proper definition of football, Arthur slurring his voice in a very unArthur way and appealing to the driver as a fellow American to refute Eames’ heresy. The cab driver however turned out to be Brazilian and supported Eames’ contention that football should involve feet being applied to a ball.

Ariadne was so busy telling herself that everything was perfectly normal and trying not to think about how illegal everything they’d just done was, and how Arthur had never intended for her to join them on the actual job, and worst of all no witnesses, that it took her a while to put together some of the comments the two had made. Under the cover of Eames commiserating over the desperate state of the Brazilian team, she leaned towards Arthur and hissed,

“Are we married?”

He dimpled at her, “You finally noticed, huh. First lesson always check on the aliases everyone’s traveling under so there are no nasty surprises.”

Cold crept down her spine, not so much at the idea of having to fake a relationship, but at exactly how much danger she’d put herself in by blithely flying across the world with a group of men she was only tenuously connected too. But Arthur didn’t touch her like it was a threat and she couldn’t believe Arthur could smile at her like he was inviting her to share the joke while harboring evil intentions.

So she followed them along meekly as Eames gave Arthur a hand carrying their bags and talked him into sharing a drink in his room to recover from the flight and watching some real honest football on the tv. Ariadne allowed herself to roll her eyes at the sympathetic-looking desk clerk, because _men_.

“Don’t think we didn’t see that,” said Eames as he strode expansively into the room, scattering bags and jackets as he went, behind them Arthur shut the door firmly and flipped the lock, “You my dear are an absolute natural.”

“Should we just be talking about this?” she asked nervously, “Do we need to check for bugs or something?”

“What did I tell you,” Eames cried, slapping a triumphant hand on Arthur’s back.

“I agreed,” Arthur protested, smiling quietly. “She’s much better than Cobb.”

“Uh, thank you?” Ariadne thought that might be the appropriate response.

“No thank you,” said Eames. “It’s a pleasure to work with someone who has some idea of basic caution unlike poor dear Dominic.”

“Be nice,” warned Arthur.

“I am being nice. Imagine what I’d say if I wasn’t.”

Arthur sighed like that was long running argument he just wasn’t interested in rehashing at that point. He turned to Ariadne,

“You should be careful of bugs, particularly after a job’s gone sideways. Our recent boss knows far too much to risk giving him any more leverage.”

Ariadne noted despite Arthur’s apparent lack of concern for bugs, he hadn’t used Saito’s name.

“So we’ve taken precautions. Eames’ original alias is booked into a room at this hotel, as was the one he used on the plane. We’re here under a completely different name. We’re very unlikely to be under surveillance.”

“What name?” Ariadne asked without thinking.

They both laughed. Arthur walked through into the bathroom and she heard the splatter of water start as he flicked the taps.

“What are you doing?” She shied away, and then jumped again as Eames stalked behind her to drag the blankets off the bed and drop one over the television and the other over the hotel phone.

“You can’t exactly stop bugs,” said Arthur as he walked out of the bathroom brushing off his hands against his jacket. Behind him the water still gurgled merrily.

“Not unless you have a lot of time to waste and somebody who knows what they’re doing,” Eames added helpfully.

“But you can make it hard for them to do much good. Given there are unlikely to be bugs anyway, this is a good stop-gap measure.”

Ariadne thought if she could catch her breath, she’d be terrified.

“And why am I here? I thought we were supposed to split up, for safety. Why are you here? You’re not going to..?” she tugged on her jacket and crossed her arms, folding in on herself.

“Yes!” exulted Eames, he flung one arm over Arthur’s shoulder and scrunched him into a celebratory hug. “I told you, didn’t I, I told you.”

“Yes you did,” agreed Arthur looking both put upon and amused.

Eames beamed at her, “So much more sense than Cobb.”

“That’s not actually much of a compliment,” said Ariadne, although she felt reassured, far more reassured than she would have been if they’d told they had no intention of quietly disposing of her.

Arthur sighed, “Not really no, but it is nice to see. Cobb was reckless.”

“Cobb was fucking dangerous,” growled Eames.

“He was from the Academic side of things,” Arthur placated. “He didn’t understand.”

“Ariadne seems to understand just fine. And Cobb wasn’t reckless, he was criminally dangerous. He killed his wife, oh he didn’t push her out the window,” he added as an aside to Ariadne, “but those experiments of his. What the hell was he thinking? And then he fled the country. Christ. Why he didn’t just call you I will never know.”

Arthur looked down at his hands.

Eames glared at Ariadne, “Let that be a lesson to you. If you get out of your depth, call Arthur.”

“And Arthur could get me off a murder charge?”

Arthur looked back up, “Probably. If you didn’t do it, that would be fairly easy. But if you’re actually guilty, could be trickier.”

Ariadne clutched her hand around the chess piece in her pocket to try and counteract the dizzy, reality warping nature of that comment.

“Eames is great at jail breaks though,” Arthur offered almost as an apology for not being good enough to get you off a crime you’d actually committed.

“I don’t think that’s as reassuring as you intended it to be.”

“Uh, sorry.” Arthur looked confused. Eames being great at jail breaks was probably was the most reassuring thing in his world. He certainly couldn’t have been getting any reassurance from Cobb. Ariadne shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

“So why did you lure me up here?” she asked. Because she was naïve, not stupid. They weren’t here just to try and reassure her, they wanted something.

“Well,” Arthur glanced across at Eames. Eames sighed.

“As noted you seem to have some sense, so you must have realized dreamshare isn’t the safest of things to be doing.”

Ariadne rolled her eyes at him.

“But I don’t think you realize how dangerous. Sure dreamshare itself is a dangerous tightrope but you have to keep in mind that it’s illegal and expensive, which means the people hiring you have a lot of money and are dangerous over and above the actual dreaming. Are in fact more dangerous than the actual dreaming.”

“I get that.”

“No you don’t. The gentleman we just worked for, why exactly did he buy an airline?”

“To give us our ten hours.”

Eames shook his head slowly, “How much does it cost to buy an airline?”

“A lot.” Ariadne huffed impatiently, she wasn’t stupid.

“Uh-huh. And would he spend that much on a longshot? On inception? How long do you think it takes to buy an airline?”

“Oh.” Ariadne hadn’t thought of that. It must have taken months.

“And why exactly did he know Robert Fischer’s flight schedule?”

“Because…” Cold stole down her back.

“Exactly.”

“But, no, Saito was nice. He wouldn’t.” She stared at the two of them feeling white and frightened.

“Saito is an extremely powerful and wealthy businessman,” said Arthur. “Just because he’s willing to keep his word when given doesn’t mean he didn’t step over a lot of bodies to get to the top and stay there.”

“But an airplane!”

“Oh he wouldn’t destroy a whole plane, not as anything but a last resort,” said Arthur.

Ariadne had the horrible feeling he was attempting to be reassuring again. Then Arthur looked thoughtful, 

“Probably, anyway. I certainly wouldn’t myself. It would draw far too much attention.”

That _drawing attention_ was the reason Arthur ruled out deliberately crashing an airliner and not, say, _killing hundreds of innocent people_ made Ariadne stagger across the room on shaky legs until she could sit down on the bed.

“Stop sounding like a serial killer, you idiot, you’re freaking her out,” Eames jabbed Arthur with his elbow.

“A serial killer is somebody who has killed three or more people with a significant cooling off period between the incidents. I am a – ”

Eames slapped his hand down over Arthur’s mouth. “And I’m going to stop you right there.” 

Then Eames jerked his hand away, cursing and trying to wipe his hand off on Arthur’s jacket as Arthur dodged away, and Ariadne realized Arthur must have licked Eames’ hand to make him let him go as if they were actually ten and not – serial killers.

“It’s true,” Arthur protested.

“Not help-ing.” Eames sing-songed back as his wiped his hand off against his own pants. “You’re trying to convince her this is serious, not scare her into a coronary.” He walked over and crouched at Ariadne’s feet, carefully taking her hands in his.

“Listen love, it’s going to be okay. You just need to understand that this is dangerous.”

“I do, I do.”

“You’re getting there true. So okay. Arthur’s actually right.”

“Thanks for nothing.” Arthur sulked.

“Saito probably wouldn’t destroy a whole plane, but an incident on landing, a small fire, multiple bumps and bruises, couple of broken bones and one unfortunate death. Maybe a heart attack. Fischer’s young and rich he must have a drugs past of some sort.”

“Problem solved,” continued Arthur. “The quick follow on death of an only heir fucks up a company like nothing else. Two lots of death duty over multiple countries, a few opportunistic heirs and the whole thing would be tied up in the courts for years. Saito could pick it to pieces at his leisure.

“But because Saito’s actually pretty decent under the ruthlessness, and he needs to watch that because it will get him done over at some point, he decided to take a punt on inception.

“It wasn’t pure altruism. If inception turned out to be a reusable trick, he’d have another valuable tool in his arsenal. That’s why he insisted on coming along, so he could get in on the ground floor. Which is the whole point.”

Eames sighed, “You’re rushing your fences, darling. She’s not there yet.”

Ariadne glared at them both, “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. Though I shouldn’t be here. I should leave you to your scary screwed up world and go back to University. I should never have left.” She would too, just as soon as her legs stopped shaking.

“Okay fine. You were right.” Arthur stomped away to glare out the window at the LA skyline.

Ariadne wanted to point out he was still acting like she wasn’t even in the room, but Eames gently rubbed her cold hands and smiled at her.

“Listen to me Ariadne. We’re not going to hurt you. We want what’s best for you. I promise we do. The fact is it would have been better for you if you had stayed at University, but you didn’t, and right now you’re stuck right in the middle of some very dangerous waters.”

Ariadne nodded shakily.

“Now you have to understand, Saito used us to completely screw his opposition. A different kind of man would have made sure we never woke up.”

Arthur coughed loudly.

“Yes alright,” Eames flashed him a smile before turning back to Ariadne. “If Saito was a different kind of man I’d have warned Arthur and Arthur would have made arrangements and Saito would have failed in his attempt to make sure we didn’t wake up, but my point still stands.”

“That’s good though, right. That he’s not that kind of man?”

“But now Saito has a dreamshare team on the hook to use whenever he wants. If it wasn’t completely obvious that inception is a total crapshoot,”

“Not when you do it,” said Arthur loyally.

“Total crapshoot,” Eames repeated. “But if it wasn’t the man would have us running up and down the country, hell around the whole world, making people have the ideas he wanted them to have. A judge here, a politician there. Now do you understand?”

“But you said inception is a crapshoot.”

“Yeah _he_ knows that. Every other bugger _doesn’t_ know that.”

Ariadne stared. She didn’t fully understand the dreamshare industry but she’d gathered that all the governments and big corporations were involved. That was a lot of powerful people. And inception would be valuable to every one of them.

“And we’re the only ones who know the secret,” said Eames heavily and Ariadne started to shiver in earnest.

“But why would anybody know about inception, I’m not going to say anything.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. It looked like he was revising his opinion of her intelligence. Eames tutted at him.

“It’s a reasonable question. She doesn’t understand just how famous you are. Arthur’s one of the leading lights in the industry,” Eames boasted.

Arthur flushed and shuffled back as he disclaimed the praise, “No more than you.”

Eames shook his head, “I’ve got a knack for forgery that few people can duplicate, so yeah, people know me. But you, you they watch because you make things happen. And lately because of the entertainment value of watching you try and keep Cobb upright as he reeled from crisis to crisis.”

“Hey.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t do a good job of it darling. Frankly you pulled off a bloody miracle.”

“Eames.” Arthur glowered. 

“Anyway, my point is people stay aware of what Arthur’s up to. And Cobb lit the pair of them up like Belisha beacons. So they’ll know something was going on with Saito. And Saito’s staff are probably more loyal than average but we all know a lot of ways of getting information out of people and Saito’s game plan will be pretty obvious. Inception will get out one way or another and everyone is going to want to know the secret.”

“But there isn’t a secret,” Ariadne protested weakly because she could already tell that wasn’t going to save them.

“Yes,” agreed Eames. “And after they’ve tortured a couple of us to death, they might start to believe that.” He glanced at Arthur, “Bags me being one of the not-tortured to death.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” scowled Arthur. “The only one with a chance would be Saito and that would be if he made it obvious he was trying to get the secret out of us.”

“Cobb.” Ariadne stared at them in horror. “Cobb and his _children_.”

“I know,” said Eames, “and he’s led them straight there. I could kill him.”

“Me too,” said Arthur. “In fact I will kill him if we can’t get this fixed because there’s no other way to keep them safe.”

Ariadne could feel herself go wide-eyed and breathless. Eames chaffed her wrists again.

“Arthur’s very literal,” he said conversationally. “Have you noticed this?”

Ariadne nodded her head frantically.

“But our Arthur is always logical. He wouldn’t have gone into this without a plan to get us out.”

Arthur scoffed, “I’ve had a plan for you being brilliant and pulling off inception for the last three years. You live to make my life complicated.”

“Thank you darling. So Ariadne. Plan. Are you in?”

“Of course I’m in.” There was quite obviously no choice here. She wasn’t sure how long it would take for the story of inception to get out but it clearly would. And while Arthur and Eames had been kind enough not to point it out, they were actually the least vulnerable. The hunters would have to find them first. She had no illusions about her own ability to hide. She’d go down right after Cobb, or possibly even first, she didn’t have anyone to miss her. Oh god.

“Head between her knees,” said Arthur.

“I know what I’m doing,” said Eames as he shoved her head into her lap.

Ariadne wanted to tell them to stop talking about her like she wasn’t there but she couldn’t seem to get any breath into her lungs.

“Ssh there we go,” soothed Eames as big hands stroked her back. “That’s better isn’t love. There we go. Okay and sit up now. There we are, that’s a girl.”

She swiped at her streaming eyes. “I’m fine. What about Fischer? When he hears?”

“Well that’s where it gets clever. If I’ve done my job right – ”

“Which you did,” Arthur said firmly as if Ariadne had argued the point.

“ – then when he hears about it Fischer will be the only person in the world who won’t believe in inception. He’ll probably find it funny that we put all that effort into making believe something that was always true. His father, he always wanted Robert to create for himself, obviously that was the only thing that would impress Dad, a self-made man himself. 

“And using the money from selling off the business he’s been able to do this or that, hmm, you know I do believe Fischer junior will go into non-profits, he’ll probably eliminate malaria or something. With an achievement like that, why on earth would Dad have wanted him to keep running an energy company? He’s building on his father’s legacy and creating something entirely new. He’s made his father proud.

“If the inception truly took root, he’s never going to believe he was incepted.”

“That is quite terrifying.”

“We’ve been wandering around in each other’s minds for weeks, and now you find it terrifying?”

“You know what I mean.” Ariadne hoped he didn’t ask for further explanations because even she wasn’t entirely sure what she meant, except that she had in no way thought this through enough.

“So plan,” said Arthur.

“Plan,” agreed Eames getting to his feet.

Ariadne looked up at them, “What do you need me to do?”

“We need to get the word out that inception is bloody difficult,” said Eames. “Because it is. You need a simple basic idea. Nothing complex will work. Usually people are going to want to implant something much too convoluted. You have to be able express it as a feeling. The argument has to be emotional not logical. Unless you’re incepting Arthur.”

“Shut the hell up,” said Arthur, bumping into Eames with his whole body. Eames laughed and wrapped his arm around Arthur’s shoulders.

“So. Inception. Bloody difficult. And it has to be something the victim will psychologically accept. A homophobe isn’t suddenly going to support gay marriage. Then even if you do get someone to accept something emotionally, it doesn’t mean their actions will change. If we hadn’t attacked his attachment to Browning at the same time there’d have been every chance Fischer would have gone with pleasing the alive father-figure and worried about his actual father later.”

“Then there’s the risks with the somancin and dropping into limbo,” said Arthur. “Going that deep, Cobb and Saito were lucky to wake up. If I have my way we’re never going to use that mixture again.”

Ariadne could tell the ‘we’ in that sentence was him and Eames.

“We need to get this information out to people,” said Eames. “Particularly the somancin risks because otherwise they’ll be dropping into limbo like a hail of frogs.”

“You have to wonder what limbo would be like if half of dreamshare suddenly popped up there,” said Arthur speculatively.

“Actually that would be interesting. Bit harsh though.”

“Maybe just the ones we don’t like.”

“No, no, no,” said Ariadne. “No sending anyone to limbo. You have to warn them.”

“Here’s the thing,” said Eames. “They’re not going to listen to us. Particularly the ones who don’t like us. Which is a surprisingly high-proportion of dreamshare when you get down to it.”

“They’re all jealous of Eames’ ability to forge,” said Arthur.

Eames smiled and shook his head. “If you say so, darling.” Ariadne nearly laughed, it was obvious he thought it was Arthur’s abilities that had the rest of dreamshare jealous. “They’ll all think we’re trying to keep the secret of our success a secret.”

Now Ariadne thought it over, she could see that. If your competitor came up to you and said _you know that amazing and successful job we pulled off for a lot of money, don’t you try it because it’s too dangerous,_ she wouldn’t believe them either.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, Yusuf is going to tell everybody everything he knows about the somancin sedative blend. He’ll probably even warn them, but they won’t listen because Yusuf is also going to tell them he knows nothing else, nothing beyond the first level, that we kept the secret of inception from him.”

“And you’re not mad about that?” asked Ariadne.

“Why would we be,” Arthur’s face scrunched up puzzled. “It’s one less person to try and save from being tortured to death.”

“Yusuf’s a solid guy. He can look out for himself. Which is why I picked him for this. He can keep himself safe and make a nice profit off the back of being the chemist who made the drugs for inception.”

“He’s far too sensible to even hint he knows the secret of inception.” Arthur sounded distinctly impressed and Ariadne felt she was falling short of his standards again. “But nobody is going to believe the rest of us aren’t in on the secret. And nobody is going to believe us if we tell them it’s not a repeatable trick. So you’re going to do it for us.”

“Why would they believe me and not you?”

“Because of who you’re going to tell.”

“It’s like this,” Eames dropped down to his knees beside her again. “We can’t tell them directly, and we can’t tell the people who want to employ us directly, but we can tell them sideways. Well you can, because the FBI will do you a deal. Us they’ll stick in a cell and beat with rubber hoses til our guts spill.”

“They wouldn’t,” she flared, because the FBI would never do that.

“I think Eames is still stuck in a forties movie,” said Arthur, “and techniques have advanced considerably, but the principle remains the same. And there are too many people after us, we’d be sitting ducks in a jail cell.”

“But you on the other hand,” said Eames taking up the argument. Ariadne felt thoroughly tag-teamed and wondered briefly if it was deliberate before realizing of course it was deliberate. 

“You’re first offense, you’re confused, lost. You can wander in and tell them everything and they’ll believe you. You don’t even have to lie because it all happens to be true.”

“You think I should go to the FBI?” Ariadne blinked at them. “Isn’t that a complete no-no as far as dreamshare is concerned?”

“Oh at least half of dreamshare is reporting to some government somewhere,” said Arthur casually, “And another half, some of the same people some of them not, are on retainer to the bigger corporations.”

“So that’s allowed?”

“It’s not the sort of thing you run around telling everyone you’re doing but the government is going to spy on us somehow, the industry might as well use it to our advantage. They don’t regulate us out of existence, then they can use us when they need to.”

“Win-win,” said Ariadne.

Eames laughed, “No sweetheart, the government’s the house and the house always wins. It’s more a win for them and a not-loss for us.”

“And that’s okay?”

“When you’re betting against the house a not-loss is the best you can do. We’ll take it.”

“So you want me to call the FBI?”

“Yep,” said Arthur, “They have a whole unit set up to deal with Dream Crimes. Last I heard the head was Peter McCormick, if you get hold of him he should be able to put you in touch with the right people.” He placed a file on the bed. “Contact details and the building address.”

“You know where they are? You know who the head of Dream Crimes is?”

“Of course. We know a lot of things we’re not supposed to. Oh and while you’re at it, see if you can get them to upgrade their PASIV. They’re still using a Mark II. I know the government’s always behind in the technology stakes but that’s just embarrassing.”

“MI5 have a Mark IV,” bragged Eames.

“Oh shut up,” said Arthur, “they need a Mark IV because their extraction team is for shit.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true and you know it.”

They glowered at each other and Ariadne was again reminded of ten year old boys.

“So you want me to call the FBI?” she checked again.

Eames broke off his staring match with Arthur and smiled at her, “It’s the only way we’re going to be safe. It’s the only way you’re going to be safe. Call them up, tell them what happened and think very carefully before you accept their offer to become an informant.”

“Informant?” She winced as her voice screeched an octave on the word.

“Sure. They’re going to want you to stay in, to keep feeding them information. You need to decide if you want to do that. Or if you want to walk away clean.”

“I – ”

“Like I said, think about. We’re not going to push you one way or the other. Although walking away would be more sensible, we haven’t seen much evidence of you being sensible.”

“You said I was sensible.”

“No,” corrected Arthur. “We said you were more sensible than Cobb.”

“Which is really not that difficult to pull off. Nobody who agrees to let people wander through their mind can be categorized as sensible.”

“Some of us are just more sensible than others, right Mr Eames?” Arthur grinned and Eames grinned back at him. Ariadne felt like they’d forgotten she was in the room with them. 

After a moment Eames shook his head clear and turned back to her. “So, it’s your decision. Just make sure to give us a call before you take a job with anyone else. We’ll give you a heads up as to wherever they’re relatively safe or if the KGB have got their hooks in them. You do not mess with the Russians, okay? You’d probably be alright with the Italian Mafia, at home or abroad, because they’re usually suckers for a pretty little thing.”

Ariadne pulled a face at the designation.

“Hey, if you’ve got it, use it.”

“Or alternatively,” said Arthur brightly, “just steer clear of the Italian Mafia.”

“Arthur,” accused Eames, “are you being sensible again?”

Arthur coughed into his fist, “Sorry, my apologies.”

Ariadne rubbed a hand over her face to hide her smile.

“That part’s up to you,” said Arthur. “Though I reserve the right to tell you to fuck off if you get into a mess with the Russians after I specifically told you not to.”

“But, you’ll work with me again, even if I am an informant?”

“Sure. You’ve got real talent. Now that we’re not trying to pull off the impossible we could have a lot of fun. And Eames, you haven’t seen Eames build yet, he’s amazing.” Arthur beamed at Eames who actually looked a little self-conscious.

“Darling, my designs make people sea-sick.”

“Only idiots who have no appreciation for a living picture. Ariadne, you have to dream his Starry Night, the blackness of the trees swallow you whole until the sky scoops you up and swirls you away and the stars are so bright...” Arthur broke off and made a helpless gesture. “I’m explaining it very badly, but if words could do it justice it wouldn’t be a very good dream.”

Eames flushed and jabbed his elbow into Arthur’s ribs. “You’re supposed to be talking her into being sensible.”

“I think it’s a lost cause. Nobody who’s dreamed is ever going to be sensible.” He glanced over at Ariadne, “Not that my opinion should stop you being sensible if you can manage it. And if you can’t, well next time we meet up we’ll take you helter-skeltering through the night sky.”

“I didn’t realize that one was your favorite,” said Eames.

“That’s not my favorite,” said Arthur scornfully, “You know which one’s my favorite.”

“I meant of the ones we show other people.”

“Oh, in that case it’s one of my favorites, and I think Ariadne would enjoy it, but all your dreams are amazing. Your Turner’s are so beautiful they’re like being on fire but other people just don’t seem to like them. She might like your Gaugin though, and Mal loved your bar at the Folies-Bergere, and oh,” he turned to Ariadne, “next time we have a successful job we’ll take you to Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge to celebrate.”

“And there could be a next time?” Ariadne asked, “Even if I was an, an informant, you wouldn’t think I’d betray you?”

“People have tried that,” said Arthur. “It didn’t go well.”

“For them,” Eames added.

“Obviously.” Arthur rocked onto his toes and then back onto his heels. “You have to remember, anyone who grabbed us would want to us to wander through people’s heads. Eames’ designs can make people seasick when he’s not trying. Imagine what happens when he tries. And on that note, don’t ever let him take you into Dali. Van Neikerk only managed five minutes of the world slithering around him before telling us everything.”

“I felt a bit sorry for him.”

“I didn’t. He fucked with you. He’s lucky I didn’t figure out a way to leave him there.” Arthur’s hands curled into fists, then deliberately relaxed again. “Or you could try Caravaggio, so sharp it’s like being carved up with knives and so exquisite it’s almost worth it.”

Ariadne thought about the amazing beauty of dreamshare, thought about that beauty being used to hurt, and wanted to cry. If she had any sense in her head she’d run as far and as fast as she could. But dreamshare was beautiful. She wanted to see Eames’ dreams. She wanted to see Arthur’s dreams too, the real ones not the office and hotel spaces he created for others to rampage through. She wanted to see his version of Paris, if it was Gothic or Classical or Residential, or some impossible combination of them all, hyper real with Penrose stairs coiling through it like jewels, gleaming and deadly.

She wanted to create her own delicate architecture like spun sugar arching across the sky in impossible paradoxes so perfect you can barely stand to look at them. She said,

“I don’t think anyone could walk away from dreaming.”

“No probably not,” agreed Arthur quietly. He was looking down at the floor. Ariadne bit her lip as she thought about how he must have taught himself to lie and cheat and kill to keep the dreaming. Then he looked up suddenly, 

“There are compensations though,” and he grinned at Eames.

“Careful darling, you’ll quite turn my head.” 

“Impossible,” said Arthur cheerfully and they stood there grinning at each other until Eames remembered Ariadne had not in fact vanished like an annoying projection but was in fact still right there. He shook his head and smiled at her,

“And you mustn’t forget Arthur.” His smile grew teeth, “Arthur’s on the ruthless side when required.”

“Well I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”

“I know darling.”

“And if you shoot yourself in the head to wake up enough times it kind of loses its mystique. You start to wonder what would happen if you went up that one last level.” Arthur sounded positively dreamy.

“But there’s no extra level.” Ariadne clutched for her totem.

Arthur shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? Don’t you ever wonder what would happen if you just woke up.” He smiled then, it was soft and sweet – and just the wrong side of crazy.

Ariadne didn’t know what to do and she was relieved when Eames jabbed him with an elbow, “Stop it.”

“Eames.”

“You promised. Not without me.”

“Of course not. But one day, right?”

“One day,” Eames promised and held out his hand for Arthur to take.

Ariadne wanted to tell them they were crazy as hell but it wasn’t funny and it wasn’t a joke. She clutched her totem tight. She still wasn’t walking away though, so maybe she was as crazy as hell too.

She bit her lip, “I should walk away.”

“But you’re not going to, are you?” said Eames.

“No.” 

“Will you go and speak to the FBI?”

“Yes,” she agreed solemnly. “Can we meet up after?”

“Be a few months for safety’s sake,” said Arthur. “I’ll send you the links to our facebook group.”

“Dreamshare has a facebook group?” That was possibly the most shocking thing she’d ever heard, and it had some stiff competition given her last month.

“Hide in plain sight,” said Arthur cheerfully. “Also we’re all architecture junkies so mostly we use it to put up photos of interesting buildings and interiors.”

“And art,” added Eames. “And people it would be fun to forge. And dozing cats to make you feel snoozey when you arrive in Dubai at three o’clock in the morning and are too tired for sleep.”

Arthur looked long-suffering. “That’s just you. And if I wasn’t overall admin for the group they’d have taken away your posting privileges by now.”

Eames smirked.

Ariadne stared, she could feel shock scrawling all over her face, “Oh my God, that’s ‘Dreamers of the Day’, I _follow_ that group.”

“There you go then. I’ll send you an invite so you can join up. Obviously all jobs are arranged by private message. And try and avoid posting recognizable architecture when you’re still in that location, no sense in making it easy for them to catch you.”

“I don’t even,” she began, but it was all too much for her and she couldn’t continue.

Eames smiled at her. “It’s okay Ariadne. We’ll leave you to get some rest. Come on Arthur, we need to get out of here anyway.”

“No,” Arthur whined, he suddenly looked exhausted, “I’m tired. Now everything’s sorted, I want to not move. Just for a bit.”

“Come along,” Eames insisted, looping Arthur’s arm around his shoulders. “I’m knackered too, but the sooner we get there the sooner we can relax.”

Arthur sighed and slumped more heavily against Eames, eyes falling shut in agreement.

“Where are you going?” asked Ariadne. Eames raised his eyebrows at her and she colored self-consciously. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Shoot us an email in a couple of months’ time when you’re back on your feet and we’ll get together. How about Prague? Arthur likes Prague.”

“Like bed better,” muttered Arthur, but he obediently grabbed his suitcase.

“Won’t they think it weird when you check out?”

“Express checkout,” said Arthur. “We’re going out the back. You can leave out the front, just make sure you leave late in the day so there’s been a shift change.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll see you soon then.”

“Sure. And remember, no taking jobs with the Russians.”

Ariadne nodded. Abruptly she felt as tired as they looked. She watched as they propped each other up and staggered out the door, Eames carefully clicking it shut behind them. Where might they be going next, flying on to yet another country? maybe England for Eames?

Because that’s what they had, a life where you had to keep running, a life where nothing was real, not even reality itself. She should walk away.

But then she remembered the feel of cities growing beneath her hands as she weaved mazes like a bright scarlet thread through her shining creation.

Ariadne was never walking away.

There was a great aching longing in her chest to dream again, and maybe she understood Arthur’s wistful belief in another level because reality felt flimsy against her skin. It was as if she had lost all mooring and was drifting as insubstantial as a ghost in her own life.

The dizzy sense of vertigo made her stagger until she landed on her knees. Clutching at the carpet with her fingers, she crawled towards the telephone, and her last remaining link to sanity.

The card was tucked safely into an inside pocket. Plain white, nothing but a quickly scrawled number – it didn’t have Josh’s name, or any identifying marks – but the sharp spiky black ink acted as a talisman against the unreality of a world gone brittle.

When she reached for the phone she half-expected her hands to slide right through – but they snagged on the hard plastic and she sobbed with relief. She dialed Josh’s number, stumbling over the keys and having to go back and start again, but finally the phone was ringing. She wished she could reach down the phone and clutch the solidity of Josh to her, the way she had when she woke screaming from dreams of Mallorie Cobb’s knife sliding into her guts.

He’d promised he’d fly out on an earlier plane and be there in LA to meet her as soon as she could get free. She would see him soon; precious, reliable and real. And best of all she could go to meet him without the guilt that had been weighing her down because Cobb might be mostly crazy, but Arthur and Eames had been nothing but nice to her.

The cool, calm voice on the other end made her gulp as normality wrapped itself around her.

“FBI Headquarters. How may I direct your call?”

“This is Ariadne,” she gasped. “Please put me through to Agent Joshua Hartwell.”


	2. Chapter 2

In another room of the hotel Eames leaned back against the head of the bed, hands folded across his chest in satisfaction.

“Well that went near perfectly.”

“Yep,” Arthur agreed fussing over the computer that was broadcasting Ariadne’s telephone call to the FBI. Ariadne had burst into overwrought tears, which Eames assured him would make her feel miles better, and Agent Hartwell was telling her she’d done well, and was very brave, and he’d be there soon, and to hold on, and was she hurt.

“No,” Ariadne’s voice hissed and cracked over the speakers, “no, I’m okay. It’s okay. It’s okay Josh. They asked me to talk to you. Oh Josh, Josh.”

Eames sighed loudly, “Can you turn that down, it strikes me they’re quite likely to be excessively tiresome before they get down to business.”

Arthur grinned at him as adjusted the volume, “I thought you’d enjoy listening to your plan come good?”

“Yes but I draw the line at out and out slush. He’s in love with her you know.”

“What? No. She’s an informant. A criminal informant.”

“She’s young, beautiful and out of her depth. Just listen to him, he’s completely crackers about her. And he’ll be young and beautiful himself, it’s a lot easier to run informants if you can get them to fall a little bit in love with their handler, so they’ll have assigned somebody pretty, probably just out of college. Match made in heaven.”

Arthur’s face wrinkled up doubtfully, “If you say so.”

“I do say so. Which works out perfectly for us. He’d believe anything she told him even if it didn’t happen to be the truth. He’ll sell it to his bosses and we’ll be all set. Give it a few months and everyone will know all the dirty secrets of inception, and nobody will be bothering us.”

“Stupid everyone,” said Arthur. “It’s obvious you’re the secret to inception.” He abandoned the computer and moved over to the bed, settling on all fours to crawl up Eames’ body until he was poised over him, knees bracketing his hips, forearms either side of his face.

“If you could not tell anyone that, I would appreciate it,” said Eames, smiling up at him. He slid his hands under Arthur’s jacket to stroke over the curve of his back. 

“I just don’t understand why nobody else can see it. Fucking Cobb saying we needed you because you’re a _forger_.”

“I am in fact a very good forger.”

“Obviously. But that is not the point.”

“Cobb’s chronic lack of appreciation is also not the point – even if the man should be kissing your hands and feet.”

“Ick,” said Arthur. “Although a thank you would have been nice, along with an apology or two.

Eames laughed at him. “The point is Dom Cobb makes more noise than a herd of elephants. Nobody is going to be thinking about me when they have the Cobb Story. He went crazy, killed his wife, performed inception and vanished into obscurity. It should be made into a movie.”

“Idiot,” Arthur kissed him lightly. “And Dom didn’t kill his wife, remember.”

“You mean the FBI don’t need to grab him and sweat dreamshare’s secrets out of him now that they’ve got Ariadne to give them up for free.”

“Tomato-tomahto.”

Eames laughed, then sighed, “I still don’t understand why he didn’t call you.”

“I think they were pushing him pretty hard.”

“Still doesn’t explain it.”

“He called me eventually.”

“When it was too bloody late. The mess he’d made of things it would have gone to trial, he’d have blabbed all dreamshare’s secrets and someone would have shot him in the head.”

“Chest,” corrected Arthur. “Long range shot at the courthouse. I’d have blamed the Mafia.”

“I love you so much, you crazy person.”

“Well good.” Arthur leaned forward to rub his cheek against Eames’. He didn’t understand Eames sometimes but he didn’t mind too much. Eames’ hands stroked through his hair and he pretended not to notice they were carefully destroying its neat appearance.

“So with the FBI losing interest and Saito throwing his weight around we got them to admit there was no evidence – without Cobb going on a trial. So that was a win all round.” Because sometimes, if you cheat, you can beat the house, as long as the house doesn’t realize what you’re doing.

“And our tip off got Ariadne in place at the FBI. Which was definitely snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.”

“Well we are brilliant, darling. Though I do wish you hadn’t gone on about going up another level.”

“It puts a crimp on people’s plan to threaten us.”

“Yes but you also mean it, makes me worried you’re going to pull a Mal on me.”

“I would never do that.” Arthur reared up indignantly. “Go stubborn on me and you’re getting a bullet to the back of the head, no messing.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay then. But not for a while yet, yeah?”

“Not for a while,” Arthur agreed, dropping back down onto his forearms so he could press his lips to the skin behind Eames’ right ear. “You’re such a good forger you might not even look like you up a level. Have to get as much of you as possible like this while I can.”

“But it won’t matter what I look like?”

“Does it ever?”

“Doesn’t seem to.”

“But I like this one best. Because even if it’s not really you, it’s your favorite. Don’t want to lose it. If you have to forge it, it won’t be the same,” Arthur pouted.

“You agreed we have a while yet.”

“True.” Arthur licked a line along Eames’ throat and then blew softly on it, enjoying the resultant shiver. “Do you think we’re aliens?”

“I think you should stop wondering about it before you get a bit too curious.”

“Now who’s being sensible?”

“We did just maneuver a source into the FBI, it would be a shame to waste it.”

“Good point.”

“And I bet next time we see her Ariadne will have Agent Josh Hartwell in tow.”

“Why would he do that? That’s missing the whole point of running an informant.”

“I told you, they’re in love. Dear Josh will have his superiors sold on an undercover role by tomorrow at the latest.”

Arthur shook his head. “He won’t risk it. Not so soon. It’s way too obvious. Maybe next year.”

“You reckon huh, what are you willing to put up?”

“Hundred K,” Arthur offered without thought. They used to trade a dollar back and forth between them, until Lisette raised her delicate eyebrows at them, _We just made a hundred thousand each and you’re betting a dollar?_ So Arthur shrugged his shoulders and Eames said, _Make it a hundred thou then darling,_ and Arthur said _done_. So now they traded a hundred thousand back and forth between them. Arthur couldn’t quite see the difference but it collected far more raised eyebrows than the dollar ever did so Eames was happy.

“Hey, this is a serious bet, none of your penny ante stuff.”

“Oh God. What is it you do want then?”

“When we get to play with a safer version of Yusuf’s long-term dream…” he trailed off leadingly.

Arthur let his forehead drop onto Eames’ chest, “Oh hell, you want to play sky pirates again.”

“You’re on the right track,” said Eames with what he liked to call his seductive look and Arthur refused to believe had seduced anybody in the whole history of ever.

“What can be worse than sky pirates?”

“Worse?” Eames rolled his head back into the pillow and scowled up at him. “Worse? I think you mean better. And if airship pirates are better than boring old boat pirates, what’s better than airship pirates?”

“I don’t know, but you’re clearly going to tell me.” Arthur received a sharp poke in the ribs for his cheek.

“Well I’m not going to if you’re going to be like that about it.” Eames turned his head away, mortally offended except for the grin. Arthur grinned back,

“Eames, darling darling Eames, of course I want to hear all about it.” He rubbed his whole body against Eames and dropped his head to push his cold nose against Eames’ ear and make him flinch.

“You little shit.”

Arthur laughed and dragged his teeth against the lobe of his ear, not to hurt, never to hurt, just to make him jump and buck his hips. 

“Think you’re so clever, don’t you,” Eames accused fondly.

“Know so.” Arthur sat back up and resettled himself in triumph. Grinding his hips down against Eames’, he made them both moan. Eames’ hands stroked up his thighs to grip his hips.

“So, uh,” with an effort Arthur fought down the impulse to stop stringing things out and dragged his mind back to their argument. “What’s worse than sky pirates, tell me do.”

“I suppose if you insist, I – ”

Abruptly Eames hands clamped down and he flipped them both over so Arthur bounced flat on his back against the mattress.

“That’s better.” Eames face leered down at him. Arthur groaned,

“You sound like you should be twirling your moustache.”

“I am a pirate, darling. And I think you should pay a forfeit before I spill any more secrets.” His hands busily rucked Arthur’s shirt out of his pants and long clever fingers started to undo the buttons brushing achingly lightly against the pale skin he found. Arthur gasped and wriggled and did a thoroughly ineffective job of escaping the teasing touches.

“Are you sufficiently cowed?” demanded Eames.

Arthur nodded as dolefully as he could manage, looking up at Eames from under his lashes.

“Little tease.” Eames traced one long finger across Arthur’s cheek.

“I’m the tease? Who was promising a ravishment?”

“I don’t think ravishment is even a word.”

“Well it should be. And since when did pirates worry about grammar.”

“Not actually a pirate at the moment.”

“Sadly this is obvious by the lack of action,” Arthur huffed. “Are you just going to stay all mouth and no trousers – “

Eames shouted with laughter.

“– because I can get my pocket book out and start planning how we we’re going to practice inception instead?” 

“I thought we’d agreed that inception was a crapshoot?” Eames did the big innocent eyes that never fooled anyone. (Or at least never fooled Arthur, other people could be alarmingly stupid.)

“You’ve never met a craps game you haven’t had plans to fix,” Arthur said tartly. When people said ‘impossible’, Eames heard ‘interesting challenge’.

The great annoyance of his life smiled, “True. And I think we can fix these odds. I have a better idea what I’m doing now and it won’t be as fraught as trying to rewire someone’s entire psyche. Just shifting an opinion or two. You will find the most apparently logically thought out position is usually driven by emotion – even in your case.”

Arthur rolled his eyes at the jab, you tell a person the logical choice is to hook up just the once and they never let you forget it,

“So what are we doing?”

“Gay marriage seems a good place to start. There’s a lot of strong opinions, for lots of different reasons which will give us plenty of variety. But with a practically endless supply of test subjects the reasons will repeat which will give us a good control. And if it all goes pear-shaped, well we won’t have lost anything.”

“Sounds very logical, Mr Eames. I am impressed.” Arthur deliberately raised one eyebrow. Eames growled,

“That’s it, you’re going over the edge.”

“No, no, no,” Arthur protested, laughing and clinging to Eames so they went over side of the bed together crashing to the floor, Eames being a gentleman and landing on his back to take the brunt of the fall.

“You’re a menace,” Eames accused as if he hadn’t been the one to start it.

“Me? You’re the one plotting to take over Washington. You do want to go Washington I take it?”

“A whole stack of targets corralled in one city, sounds ideal. We can spend a few months ironing the kinks out of inception while Ariadne and dear Josh get their stories straight and then meet up in Prague for Christmas, how does that sound?”

“You still think Josh is going to be crazy enough to tag along?”

“Positive.” Eames smiled all teeth. “You going to put your money where your mouth is?”

“You’re on,” said Arthur. He was fairly sure he was being ruthlessly conned but there was no reason to mind with Eames happy, warm, and solid beneath him. “What is it you want anyway if it isn’t sky pirates?” 

“It’s not that I don’t want sky pirates, but I’m bored of battling out in the clouds, I want to be able to land.”

Arthur called up his most impressive scowl, “You mean you’re no longer satisfied with airships, you want me to create an entire steampunk world for you to wreak havoc in?”

“Only if you lose the bet,” Eames tempted.

“Oh, and what’s in it for me if I win.”

“You’re not going to win.”

Arthur sighed, “I know that Eames, but it’s courteous to pretend I have a chance, so what’s in it for me if I win.”

Eames face scrunched up in puzzlement, and maybe it was a mean question because there wasn’t really anything Eames wouldn’t do if Arthur simply asked for it. Then Eames lit up,

“Got it. If you win, I won’t say another word about bloody Cobb and his daftness.”

Arthur choked, “God. You can’t promise that. You’d sprain something.”

“Well I’m not going to lose. So that’s my stake, yours is making me a sky pirate world to play in.”

Arthur sighed heavily, “Do you know how much work that will take?”

Eames blinked, sad but hopeful. “Just a small island with a few ports to call in at,” he wheedled.

“Two ports,” Arthur specified sternly.

“Two ports,” Eames agreed meekly.

“Alright then,” he conceded and was almost blinded by Eames’ gleeful grin. 

Arthur made sure he looked put upon because he didn’t want Eames to figure out he’d already created him an island, three ports, and was working on a proxy for London. If Eames was going to spend months testing out inception Arthur would have plenty of time to get everything sorted and shipshape.

Unfortunately it appeared some of his smugness at accurately predicting Eames’ wishes was leaking because Eames’ eyes were starting to squint with suspicion.

He had to put a stop to that, so he lent forwards and distracted Eames with a long through kiss. Arthur did so love having a logical reason for doing exactly what he wanted.


End file.
